Star from “Emmanuelle” has Died

The erotic movie star from “Emmanuelle” Sylvia Kristel, 60, has lost the fight against her cancer.

She died in her sleep during Wednesday night.

The Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel, 60, is best known for her participation in the erotic hit film series “Emmanuelle”.

Her agent, Marieke Verharen from Feature Creative Management, made a statement on Thursday informing that Kristel died in her sleep on Wednesday night. Kristel, a model who became an actor in the 1970s, had been battling cancer for 10 years and in July she had a stroke that put her in hospital, Verharen said.

Her breakthrough happened in “Emmanuelle”, an erotic story that was directed by Frenchman Just Jaeckin. It’s a story about a man and a woman’s sexual adventures in Thailand. Kristel starred in several “Emmanuelle” sequels, but also in other productions such as “Agent 86″.

The movie eventually grossed more than $300 million and was seen by at least 350 million people (it was advertized in the US with the tagline: “In the first 14 weeks after its release, two and a half million Frenchmen stood in line for it!”), making it one of the most successful French movies of all time, the Guardian said.

Kristel went on to appear in Hollywood movies including The Concorde: Airport ’79, The Nude Bomb and Private Lessons, and a long list of film and TV roles in Europe.

Yet she admitted, writes the Guardian’s Xan Brooks, that her career was “blighted by heavy drinking, cocaine use and a nagging inability to shake off her most famous creation.”

Speaking to the paper in 2001, however, Kristel said she “absolutely no regrets” about her iconic role.